Teacher Feature: Cory Davis

Teachers around the country often share their stories with us, as each classroom finds a slightly different solution in using Wowzers. Today, we will be featuring Cory Davis, a sixth grade math teacher of seven years. Currently, he works at Humes Preparatory Academy in the Achievement School District of Memphis, Tennesee.

Because Davis’s students use the browser-based version of Wowzers, he has them set up on Google Chromebooks – an inexpensive laptop solution for many classrooms. By using the playlist feature built into Wowzers, he creates individual paths through the curriculum for small-group instruction, enrichment, and intervention. His students seem to love his method, as one reports, “I was struggling with my sixth grade math skills, but Mr. Davis assigned me easier skills so I could work my way back up to sixth grade.”

Davis uses Wowzers in conjunction with the NWEA Learning Continuum and has seen many of his students make great strides, such as one determined individual who used Wowzers at home and saw 21 RIT points of growth after all his hard work. Davis credits the personalization of Wowzers for much of his students’ success and recommends that teachers use it to its full advantage, explaining, “It’s best not to keep your students on the same skill because every students is not the same.”

As most teachers quickly realize, there is a huge selection of other math programs out there. Davis considered using Khan Academy in his classroom, but found that Wowzers was more challenging, while also remaining kid-friendly. He has also had good experience with Wowzers’ customer service, finding them fast and helpful.

When asked what he likes best about Wowzers, Davis gave special recognition to the top-notch graphics, easy reward system, and the built-in assessments. As for his students, it seems their love of Wowzers is a little simpler: “I love the ability to control an actual character that looks like me!”

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About Wowzers

The Wowzers K-8 math program is based on the Science of Learning addressing cognitive, emotional, social, reflective and physical learning. The program as a whole, with adaptive lessons and practices, videos, games, career quests, assessments, test prep, and blended learning activities take into account all of the systems of learning in the brain and guides students toward mastery of content and development of creative and critical problem solving. Content is presented in multiple ways, and appeals to tactile, auditory, and visual learners. Assessments based on standards mirror those found on high-stakes achievement tests and provide teachers the information that they need to personalize learning. Wowzers robust award winning Teacher Dashboard, available to both teachers and administrators tracks individual student and classroom progress in “real time” and includes a variety of reports to ensure that all students are mastering content.